Cropped Videos and Distorted Statements
The "He Knew About the Coup in Advance" Claim: How the Date of the Speech Was Changed
Unfounded
Claim
Fact
This claim arose when the speech of 1 July 2016 was put into circulation after the coup attempt of 15 July 2016, and it was repeated again around the operation of 30 January 2018. The sentence that was cut is the same sentence; the only thing that changed is the date on it.
Those who spread the recording said the speech had been made on 14 July 2016, that is, one day before the coup. This had one single effect: a political assessment made months earlier began to look like a piece of news given on the eve of the coup.
The calendar settles the claim on its own. 14 July 2016 was a Thursday; yet the exegesis lesson at which the speech was made has been held on a Friday for twenty-two years. 1 July 2016 was a Friday. Indeed he announced the news of the coup at the end of that same programme, on the night of Friday 15 July 2016.
Kuytul's answer follows the same line:
"To begin with, the day before he says — that is a Thursday; was the exegesis lesson not on a Friday? We do not hold lessons on Thursdays at all, we have held them on Fridays for 22 years. ... And even if it were not so, even if it had been the day before, would that show that I knew about the coup? The President does not know, and I am supposed to?"
He had made the same assessment earlier too: in a question-and-answer session on 10 February 2016, commenting on the US Vice-President's visit to Turkey, he summed up the message given to the government as "your pen has been broken, be aware of it", and he repeated the same warning in March 2016. No claim of prophecy can be built on words spoken five months before the coup.
The prosecution service brought no case on this charge either, concluding that the speech contained no element of an offence.
That the same words amounted to an insult is a separate claim, and it ended in acquittal on 10 January 2019: Was the phrase "his pen has been broken" an insult to the President?
The difference between two dates
The text of the speech is not in dispute. Those who spread the claim and those who answer it quote the same sentences. The only thing argued over is when those sentences were said.
If they were said on 1 July 2016, what we have is a political assessment: a reading that saw certain powers isolating the government, and a warning made on that basis. If they are taken to have been said on 14 July 2016, the same sentences turn into something else entirely — a message given by implication by someone who knew about the coup.
This change, made without touching a single word, is the quietest form of clipping. The person watching the recording does not look for a forgery, because the words really were spoken.
What does the calendar say?
The speech was not made at a closed meeting but at the weekly exegesis lesson. That lesson has been held on Fridays for twenty-two years, and its recordings are published.
- 1 July 2016 — Friday. The day the speech was made.
- 14 July 2016 — Thursday. The day given in the claim; there is no lesson on that day.
- 15 July 2016 — Friday. The night of the coup attempt; Kuytul announced the news of the coup at the end of that week's exegesis lesson.
The last line matters, because the information that refutes the claim is confirmed by the claim's own material: the recording from the night of the coup is also at the end of a Friday lesson. That the lesson day is a Friday is said by the very video in the hands of those spreading the claim.
Nor was it hard to check. The date the recording was published is known, the date the speech was made is known. The one thing those spreading the claim had to do was look at that date.
The same words, five months earlier
The expression "his pen has been broken" was not used for the first time on 1 July 2016. In a question-and-answer session on 10 February 2016, asked about the statements the US Vice-President made on press freedom and academics during his visit to Turkey, Kuytul interpreted them as a message given to the government and summed up what was being said in diplomatic language as "if you go on like this your pen has been broken, be aware of it". He repeated the same warning in March 2016.
If a person repeats the same observation over five months on different occasions, what we have is not news but an opinion. A claim of prophecy can only be built by assuming the words were spoken once and immediately before the event — and that is why the claim changes the date.
The difference between an analysis and a piece of information
Kuytul's grounds were no secret: the US President not wanting to meet the President, the protocol treatment shown at international ceremonies, the isolation of the government in the outside world. All of this was in the newspapers in those days.
Here lies the difference between reading a direction of travel and knowing about a coup plan. The first is something anyone who follows the news can do; the second is a crime. The claim is built on presenting the first as though it were the second.
Kuytul's answer to this charge also sets the measure of the matter: even if it had been said the day before, that would not show that he knew about the coup; a preacher cannot be expected to know of an attempt the state itself was unaware of.
The legal outcome
This charge did not get past the prosecution stage. The examination concluded that the speech contained no malice and no element of an offence, that the statement had been made in good faith, and no case was even opened.
The other charge drawn from the same speech — insulting the President — was taken to court and ended in acquittal on 10 January 2019.
For the acquittal and the chief inspector's assessment: Was the phrase "his pen has been broken" an insult to the President? — For how date-shifting works as a method: Cutting a sentence off in the middle.
This page refutes the claim by way of the calendar. The second answer to the same claim — that the same political observation had been voiced repeatedly since 10 February 2016, months before the coup — is on a separate page: The same analysis had been made months before the coup too.